About the Famed Battle of Tours, 732 A.D.

Once Spain vainquished, the Arabs kept progressing on an axis which was bringing them to Avignon (North of the Rhone delta), France, whence to Burgundy -that is the southern part of the Frankish world- and to Provence -that is the road to Italy. The Arabic move into Spain was, from their point of view, about the conquest of Europe as, after submitting Gauls, Italy and peoples of Germania, they wanted to follow the Donau river since its source to the Black Sea where they wanted to besiege Constantinople. Their project was like founding a new Roman empire around the Mediterranean. Such a move was temporarily altered by the Duke of Aquitaine, that region in the southwest of France. He is worried from the conquest of Spain by the Arabs, south of his dominion and their move to its southeast! Hence he entered into talks with the local Arab chieftain in the region of Narbonne, on the coast between Spain and Marseille, as he convinced the latter to betray his chiefs in Spain. This triggers the reaction of those, who send a strong party of Arabs against him and into Aquitaine. The Arabs sack Bordeaux, as, from there, they consider to move further North, to the booty-promising cities of Poitiers and Tours, with their famed sanctuaries of St. Hilarius and St. Martin. The Duke of Aquitaine, on the other hand, was in a conflict of sort with Charles Martel, the powerful mayor of the palace of Austrasia. That leads to that the army of the Franks crashes head on onto that party of Arabs in the famed Battle of Tours, in October 732 A.D. Also, it seems that one can say that the encounter between the Arabs and the Franks occurred earlier than it should have -should have it ever did so. It's unsure that how the Arabs were progressing into Gaul, through the Rhone valley and into Provence, would have led to such a major battle with the Franks -related, above all, to the axis of the Rhone valley. In 731, Arab raids already had pillaged Autun (a city northwest of Lyon) and ventured more North still, up to Luxeuil, or Nancy. Should it have occurred, the battle surely would have taken place somewhere between Dijon, Burgundy, and Nancy, Lorraine, as it surely would have been determining for Western Europe's fate. The move of Charles Martel towards Aquitaine, in any case, allowed him too to capture Provence. The destabilization of the Arab Caliphate, under its Umayyad form, as it was arrested too in its march towards Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire, definitively forbade that decisive battle between the Franks and the Arabs. Those of Poitiers just came back in Spain, eventually, to meet the Abassid takeover in Damas and Spain to pass to heirs of the Umayyads, as an independent state. After they had been defeated, at first, by Duke Odo of Aquitaine by 725 A.D. remains of Saracens gave off contagions, of which the plague, in Gaul. Chronicles also evoke Saracen raids which were performed by way of sea, aboard large fortified ships, along the shores North of the Garonne's mouth. The accurate location of the Battle of Tours remains subject to debate as a interesting hint is that the Saracens are referring to the battle like the 'Battle of the Roadway,' likely pointing to that it took place close to one of both Roman roads which crossed in Poitiers. Of note also is that Vouillé is lying some 12 miles West of the city, close to the East-West Roman road as that is the place where King Clovis' infantrymen of the Franks vainquished the cavalry of the Visigoths

Arab leaders at the time of the Battle of Tours, on another hand, did not realize how the Frankish might had swiftly and mightily developed under the leadership of Charles Martel, as their incapacity to lead scouting operations, or to exactly assess the situations, was other characteristic of theirs. On the Frankish side, the Battle of Poitiers, was the fact of a heavy infantry, mainly, with each Frankish warrior carrying 70 pounds of equipment. Charles Martel, from Poitiers onwards, did develop a heavy cavalry too to oppose the Arab one, with stirrups, a saddle, and an armour. So his troops, both the foot warriors and the horsemen, be available all year long, Charles Martel borrowed lands from the Church and lend them to his warriors (those lands are called 'precaria [verbo regis]' ('lands hold precarily by the King's word'), allowing the Carolingians to have a permanent army at disposal (as, before, the Frankish warriors were available between the time of planting and the one of harvesting). The concept of a heavy cavalry had, as far as it is concerned, been itself borrowed by the Arabs from the Sassanids, in Persia, as that dynasty had founded its defense on those heavily armoured horsemen (along with their horses) and war elephants

The Franks of the time of Charlemagne, in any case -and it's the case, for example, for Einhard, who is famed for having written his 'Life of Charlemagne'- seem well to have, at that time, kept in memory that the Arabs, which Charles Martel had fought in Tours, had like their real purpose to really conquer the Gaul. And too, that the batlle in Tours, in 732, had been a determining moment into forbidding them to do so. Einhard, thus, says: 'It was this Charles [Charles Martel] [...] who, through two great battles, had imposed a complete defeat to the Saracenes who were trying to conquer Gaul, and who had forced them to return back into Spain. Those two great battles had occurred, a one in Aquitaine, near the city of Poitiers, and the other, on the Berre river, near Narbonne.' A alternate view is too that Umayyads, who had revitalized the Arab conquest operations with the view of winning over Byzantines were aiming to attack Constantinople, their capital city, through the backdoor, passing through Italy and the Balkans. Chroniclers, on a other hand, are thinking the beginnings of the expansion of Islam like a question directed to the Byzantine empire and that too of the seizure of Jerusalem or the loss of eastern provinces. After that, they do not mention the settlement of Saracens in Spain as they mostly state that they entered Gaul. They thus mention, among other facts, the battle of Poitiers and they mostly mention the pouring of Arabs in 'Gothia,' current Languedoc in France, against which Charles the Hammer marshaled the help of Lombards. Charles the Hammer, more generally, acquired a immense prestige through the Battle of Tours, in the eyes of the contemporary powers and papacy as that moment was decisive as far as the future of the West was concerned